Taking the high road on a bicycle trip out and about
Taking the high road on a bicycle trip out and about
By Mehru Jaffer
JAKARTA (JP): A BMW is fine but if you asked Vaughn Ball he
would probably say a bicycle was better, if not the best way to
explore rural pleasures. An expatriate geologist living in
Jakarta, Vaughn prefers to spend much of his leisure time
cruising along kampung trails on a bicycle and discovering what
people do in remote areas of this island.
After a 45-minute drive south of Jakarta, he parks his car and
pedals off along a one of a number of bicycle trails beginning
near the headwaters of the Cileungsi, Ciherang and Cikeruh
rivers.
Thereafter there is nothing but a cool breeze to keep him
company through miles of rubber and tea plantations. Waterfalls
are spotted often, and along the way there is the continuous
appearance and disappearance of river and rice valleys along
friendly kampungs.
When he pauses for a little rest, he spends time picking up
tricks from Sundanese villagers around the Sentul area on how to
beat opponents in the board game Dam Das. He was attracted to the
game after he came across numerous informal boards scratched in
the soil, carved in planks of wood, scratched with chalk on rock
or cement slabs and played with pieces that were usually no more
than pebbles. Once he started to play the game, Vaughn found Dam
Das to be a type of Chinese checkers.
He has discovered that the most beautiful section of the trail
in this area is the Cibodas Passage, where he can inspect a small
hydroelectric generator and visit a Singkong factory, though he
prefers to peddle quickly across Kampung Ayam before the horde of
chickens slaughtered there keeps him from wanting to see one ever
again.
During his many trips to the area, he has made friends with
people in villages tucked faraway in fairyland landscapes where
often the most important economic activity remains collecting
pebbles from the river, and where children play all day long on
logs drifting on the water. He has basked in other simple
pleasures as well, like watching women wash clothes in the lap of
majestic mountains.
It was in the late 1980s that some avid mountain bikers
discovered a random maze of trails heading toward Bogor from
Jakarta, kicking off a golden age of exploration up and down the
Cikeas River from its source to confluence. By 1991 the mountain
bike fad had hit Jakarta in earnest, with clubs and giant rallies
becoming popular.
Enthusiasts not only explored new bicycle trails through mud,
heat and rain, but also mapped the paths they discovered. One
biker, Geoff Bennet, put down all of his experiences in The
Jakarta Hike and Bike Trail Guide, which came out in 1998. A
Canadian geophysicist, Geoff arrived in Jakarta in 1984 to become
an active leader in the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. An energetic
hiker, biker, climber, canoeist and naturalist, he left Indonesia
recently, but only after introducing many adults and young people
here to the joys of being outdoors.
On one trip, Ken Pattern, the Canadian artist with a special
talent for lithography, accompanied Geoff through the
countryside, mainly to see the "disappearing" bamboo footbridges.
After the success of his Disappearing Jakarta series, in which he
contrasted the old with the new, he was inspired to make a
triptych of the bamboo bridges he came across during his bicycle
rides. He titled one of them Ibu Seen Walking over the Ema Ami
Bridge, named after the Sundanese woman who maintained the
bridge, and allowed Geoff to use it on the front cover of his
book.
The same bridge is lovingly called Arch Tree by countless
bikers and joggers who find it a thrilling experience to cross
it. Of the 40 or so bridges across the muddy brown turns and
twists of Cikeas River, fewer than half are still made out of
natural materials.
"Several are already swept away by floods and replaced by
soulless spans of concrete and steel," regrets Geoff, who feels
that each of the traditional bridges has its own unique
personality, some being little more than rickety strips of bamboo
and wire, while others are intricate, charming and sturdy arches
airily suspended from one leafy bank to the other. Some of these
bridges command a breathtaking view of Cikeas River, and from
them many have happily watched the world float by. It will be a
sad day if these wonders are allowed to disappear or are
replaced.
Accompanying the book is a very useful map called Bridges Over
the River Cikeas, with names whimsically invented by mountain
bikers during more than a decade of exploration. The bridges
include Underwear and Madison County. The first bridge which
Geoff stumbled across back in 1988 was found to belong to a
sharp-tongued Ibu Imas, who is said to beckon to the bikers from
her "house of ill repute" on the east bank
It seems the best bicycle routes follow dirt footpaths,
especially those worn smooth by motorbikes, connecting one
kampung to another. As a beginner, it is safest to take the route
from the Sentul Selatan exit, which meanders through five
kilometers of well-paved roads and another five kilometers to get
to the top of Bojongkoneng hill.
However, whatever route is chosen it better be chosen soon,
before the trails are swallowed up by yet another one of the
housing complexes which are fast replacing the fields and flowers
on the slopes of the Sundanese highlands.